Modupeola Fadugba Nigerian, b. 1985

Modupeola Fadugba is a Nigerian multimedia artist working in painting, drawing, and socially-engaged installation. Her works explore cultural identity, social justice, game theory, and the art world, within the socio-political landscape of Nigeria and the greater global economy. Fadugba’s mixed media paintings adopt the art of synchronized swimming as a powerful metaphor for personal identity, collective empowerment, and racial history.

Modupeola Fadugba was born in Togo and grew up in England and the United States as a child of Nigerian diplomats. A self-taught artist, she holds a Bachelors in Chemical Engineering from the University of Delaware, a Masters in Economics from the University of Delaware, and a Masters in Education from Harvard University. Her projects have examined triumphant swimmers and lifeguards from Accra, Abuja, Lagos, Dakar, Philadelphia and Harlem.

Solo exhibitions include Heads Up, Keep Swimming at Temple Muse in Lagos in 2017; Synchronised Swimming & Drowning at Ed Cross Fine Art in London in 2017; Prayers, Players & Swimmers at the Cité internationale des arts in Paris in 2017; and Dreams from the Deep End in New York in 2018. She has participated in numerous group exhibitions including the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in London in 2017; Afriques Capitales in Lille, France in 2017; and Art Energy in London in 2015. Her work was selected in the 2016 Dakar Biennale, where she was awarded a Grand Prize from the Senegal Minister of Communication. Her project The People’s Algorithm received the 2014 El Anatsui’s Outstanding Production Prize at Nigeria’s National Art Competition.

Her work is included in the collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Minneapolis Museum of Art, the University of Delaware, Chicago Booth School of Business, the Sindika Dokolo Foundation and the Liberian President, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.